By embedding SuperFlash technology, the SST55LC100 CompactFlash NAND flash disk controller can support the latest NAND flash components through firmware changes that are programmed into the embedded flash. Traditional masked-ROM based controllers require mask changes to incorporate any new NAND devices, according to Samuel Nakhimovsky, senior product marketing manager of Application Specific Controller Products Group at SST.

"As the flash market is becoming more competitive with a number of new suppliers starting to deliver NAND flash components with different new features, such as read cache, write cache, copy back, multi-plane programming, etc., manufacturers are looking for an easy way to support these new memories," he said.

The SST55LC100 CompactFlash NAND flash disk controller recognizes the control, address and data signals on the CompactFlash bus and translates them into memory accesses to the NAND-based flash media. Designed for solid-state mass storage applications, the SST55LC100 device supports single level cell (SLC) media.

It delivers up to 10-Mbytes/s sustained read and write performance, and can support up to eight flash media devices directly for up to 8-Gbytes of maximum CompactFlash card capacity.